Being in China for the first time and not knowing the language or the culture presented many challenges. Work that was created over the last 45 days is reflective of those challenges and observations of my surroundings. Some of those observations included Ningbo as a specific place with its flora, fauna and architecture, the people and differences and similarities in our cultures.
Being in a completely unfamiliar situation I felt acutely aware that Ningbo and China were imprinting on me with a bombardment of imagery and information. Assimilating to my environment I thought about how I was going to visually communicate this experience.
Scenes from in and around Ningbo are apparent in the work. The repeated use of the fingerprints has come to represent my situation and is the symbolic equivalent of self. With no two fingerprints the same and remaining the same from birth to death, it seemed like a logical form to focus on. It also represents the traditional and the contemporary. Humans have used fingerprints to create some of the very first Art. Through time we have used them for individual identification. You may have used yours shortly before arrival here and you will use them again before you leave to take a picture, message a friend, or any of a plethora of things your Smartphone requires your finger tips to do.
Andrew Redington
2023/11/28
